occupythedisco:

I am actively annoyed by “the poor millennials vs. entitled boomers” posts now. Everyone of them is “your generation had everything while mine is suffering in squalor” as if the majority of boomers live comfortably and every millennial is broke. People making lazy generational arguments is always obnoxious in any direction, but it’s moved from “parents just don’t understand” responses to this actual serious thing where folks want to act like every baby boomer had equal access to the benefits and advantages they insist “defined” a generation even though they were really only defining for a specific but vocal subset of a generation. 

Because my black working class parents and grandparents didn’t get to participate in a lot of the shit that built and sustained a stable and functioning middle class for their generation, so a lot of that wealth consolidation was shut off to them. As a result, financial stability has always been a precarious thing for them and I imagine that’s true for a lot of people with similar circumstances who aren’t the ones in mind for these posts but are very much a big part of the generation being described as having more opportunity. They were being screwed over then and they’re being screwed over now.

 It’s clear that your grievance is with late capitalism, institutional white supremacy and the general fiscal irresponsibility of the rich. However it’s easier to blame old people, because then you get to ignore how rich white millennials are also complicit in continuing to promote the inequality you’re bringing attention to. As if Silicon Valley, DC and Wall Street aren’t littered with ambitious young folks with tons of money and connections just itching to climb to the top via the same tactics.